THE Center for Information Technology and Development (CITAD), has stressed the need for the federal government ,to expedite the passage of digital rights bill,which has been with the national assembly, for over eight years.
The executive director CITAD Engineer Yunusa Zakiri Ya’u,made the call during a two day workshop on digital rights,protection mechanical, and online security tools, for digital rights activists in Kano.
He explained that,the passage of the bill ,would safe guard internet users and curb rampant cases of fraudulent activities, data privacy and protection.
The executive director, stated that, the purpose of the training,was to enhance the capacity of journalists,activists and lawyers, on how they can identify online threats and respond to those threats professionally.
“Digital space has become, a critical components of our lives adding that digital space is not just free however has some challenges and threats to individual, especially the journalists, activists and lawyers ”
“journalists,activists and lawyers to understand what are these threats, the challenges and what do ,,when they have as a citizens, to protect these right and when they are violated digitally and ways to report these rights to appropriate authority”
He pointed out that, though government had responded to one issue,which is data protection by signing it into law, which indicated that if ones data protection is being violated ,the person can report to data protection agency for redress.
The country director, Avocats San Frontieres France ,Angela Uwandu Uzoma Iwuchukwu,explained that, the workshop was organised for journalists,activists and lawyers, to educate them more on internet usage.
She stressed that, it would also build their capacity on profession mechanism,safety use of internet without intimidation nor harassment, while discharging their duties .
The country director described journalists, activists and lawyers as crucial to democracy ,saying that, they hold government accountable and ensure the right of citizens, were protected, hence the need to ensure they were properly guided on the usage of internet.
“What we were urging government for ,is to scale up awareness for people, noting that when we were talking about right to data,the subjects need to know that they equally have rights and be able to know when that rights is breach”
The workshop organised by CITAD in collaboration with Avocats San Frontieres France, was attended by the state coordinator national human rights Commission (NHRC), Kano office Alhaji Shehu Abdullahi,Journalists, lawyers, activists, civil society organizations, among others.
KHADIJAH ALIYU
